On 2012-02-12, at 11:53 AM, Julio Huato wrote:
> Eric Beck wrote:
>
>> Old habits die hard. Between Julio's hard force of
>> discipline and uniformity of tactics and Bhaskar's
>> and Carrol's soft force of expanding the movement
>> so as to marginalize the anarchists, the urge to purge
>> remains strong. It's almost comical. Just when I think
>> anarchists are engaging in anachronistic taunting for
>> invoking Stalinism, it rears its fetid head.
>
> You may believe that, by refusing to subordinate
> yourself to the basic discipline any movement requires to maintain a
> modicum of unity and coherence, you're kicking authoritarianism out of
> the door. The problem is that, by so doing, you may actually be
> ushering in through the window a worse type of authoritarianism.
This was a common complaint of those who experienced and passed through the "participatory democracy" of the SDS in the 60's. I'd be interested to know whether any of the various Occupies have managed to overcome the problem of de facto leadership exercised by the most assertive, and typically most experienced (often male), debaters, or whether these complaints are still surfacing in the absence of formal democratic procedures designed to promote accountability.